The pope is wrong – the World Cup shows the Balkans' people are united

Don't be shocked at nude photos of Croatian players, but at Pope Francis dismissing the region as divided

The Pope said he hoped the World Cup could be transformed into a 'festival of solidarity between peoples', but delivered a broadside to the nations of the former Yugoslavia. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Only a few days after the controversial refereeing during the opening World Cup match between Brazil and Croatia, a new buzz hit the tournament – photos of nude Croatian players bathing in the team's swimming pool just after the defeat.

To be shocked over this would be wrong. Even for a country such as Croatia, which banned gay marriage at the end 2013, a few guys bathing naked shouldn't come as a surprise. It's hot in Brazil and, yes, even football players are nude sometimes.

At the same time, what should really shock us is a recent interview given by Pope Francis to the Spanish magazine La Vanguardia. Asked about the independence of nations by secession, he mentioned the example of former Yugoslavia and said: "Obviously, there are nations with cultures so different that couldn't even be stuck together with glue." It came just after he delivered a message as the World Cup opened expressing the hope that the tournament could be transformed into a "festival of solidarity between peoples".

Since Croatia's World Cup debut in 1998, when we finished third and provided the tournament's top scorer, Davor Šuker, Croatia has missed only one tournament. For Bosnia and Herzegovina it's their first. Serbia's national team didn't qualify. But what is happening for the first time since the secession of these countries from Yugoslavia is that soccer fans and ordinary people from all these countries are cheering each other. Young Serbs launched a campaign called Support the Neighbours, where they organise public screenings to support the teams of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same is also happening in other successor states to the former Yugoslavia.

Just a month after the devastating floods that hit this region, the people of the Balkans have united again. Usually, football provokes nationalism and fans of rival teams can't stand each other, but it seems that this time it might be different. At least for some. Of course, it would be over-optimistic to say this proves the Pope wrong, but it is the Balkan countries that are showing more and more signs of what real solidarity could mean today.

What the Pope did in his interview is nothing but repeat an old cliche about the Balkans: that this is a violent region of savages not capable of living together. First we produced Gavrilo Princip, whose actions sparked the first world war, then we had 45 years of socialism, and then we ended up in the bloody war of the 1990s.

But it would be too easy, and the pope should know better, to dismiss Yugoslavia as such. If there ever was a period in which different nations lived together in relative prosperity and peace, it was Yugoslavia. Contrary to the prevailing myth, it wasn't just nationalism that led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia; the dissolution of Yugoslavia led to nationalism. The socialist state started to fall apart much earlier, primarily due to its own internal contradictions and economic problems, but even during the worst economic crisis of the 1980s the people of Yugoslavia stood together.

As Jake Lowinger showed in his pioneering research about the labour unrest and ethno-nationalism in the 1980s, Yugoslavia was hit by increased industrial strikes every year. In 1987 these totalled 1,685, with 288,686 workers from all sectors and all ethnic groups taking part. Not only that, the majority of strikes emphasised the need for strengthening the existing self-management system rather than replacing it with a more "liberal" regime – but Serbs, Croats and Muslims were fighting together. As they did during the recent floods, helping each other; as they do now during the World Cup, supporting each other. Maybe, after all, there is still some hope for solidarity in the Balkans.